FTFA: You discover that we all have but five lives to give in the quest to crush candy, and if you use them all up before clearing a level, you're locked out of the game for 30 minutes before you can try again. Wait 30 minutes, lose that life, and you have to wait for 30 more. Or you can cough up 99 cents to buy more lives so that you can carry on playing. You know, while you have the hot hand.

For just 99 cents, you can purchase five more moves. I wish I didn't know this, but if, after 10 extra moves, you feel the need for another five, the price goes up to $1.99

Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse to buy any game that relies on this revenue model to make money. These people can fark off and die with their microtransactions.

THIS. Holy shiat, I cannot believe people get suckered into Candy Crush. Bejeweled is the bane of my existence as I have purchased it on three phones, one iPod, and through Steam, and yet I have probably still spent less money that the idiot who wrote that. I feel stupider having read that article.

Give your money to Popcap. They're a GOOD, respectable game company, and they will use it to create more awesome games. Pass this knowledge on to your friends and family, and if they refuse to listen, I'll help you hide the body.

MightyPez:js34603: Yet another thing that is the death of gaming. We're up to what? About 20000 things that "omfg are totally ruining gaming!" I think. Good thing part time trolls/full time idiots are here to tell us plebs why what you find fun isn't actually fun and is totally killing the industry.

/you think it's fun? Play it, screw the idiots telling you you're destroying the industry//don't think it's fun or convinced it's destroying gaming and ruining the chance for your totally sweet indie game to sell millions of copies? Don't farking play it///I don't play this game////playing the hell out of some knights of pen and paper though

I can't agree enough with this. If anyone is "ruining" gaming it's the self described hardcore gamers that want to dictate what everyone else plays.

"Oh you mean if I want to play video games I have to adopt this assholes attitude? Yeah, no thanks."

The problem here is not the game (which is just another Bejeweled clone, Bejeweled itself being a clone of another game), it's people spending money to play it when you don't ever have to part ways with your wallet. It encourages developers/publishers to put paywalls up in their games, because that's what makes money. You're not paying for anything; you're literally paying for nothing, for no work on the part of the developer or publisher or content creator. I'm not sure why anyone would want that. Especially ridiculous in this case, considering there are dozens and dozens of Bejeweled clones (including Bejeweled itself) on the market, most of which aren't quite as egregious in their money-grabbing shenanigans.

Or, to put it another way: I don't give a flying fark about what you play; I do have a problem with encouraging consumer-unfriendly practices.

StopLurkListen:Mike_LowELL: StopLurkListen: It's a game. Play it or don't. It's free, you can pay if you want or not. "Freemium" is just a different way to get income.

It's also a fundamentally flawed, impossibly toxic game model which makes finality in the finished work impossible. You have to continue adding things, regardless of whether they are good or bad, because that is the business model. The game can never be preserved, because that is the business model. Once the game stops being profitable, it gets shut off. The only saving grace is that most of the games using this model (regardless of company size and influence) happen to be shiat.

It's not flawed, it just is. Don't like it? Don't pay for it. Remember the days of the arcade machines? Those games were designed to get you to pay $0.25 every sixty seconds or so. This is pretty much the same but the first sixty seconds (or two days or whatever) are free.

The best way to convince these game makers to not do whatever it is you don't like, is to not give them money. Good luck with that, it's the biggest moneymaker now...

CSB. When I was a kid I lived next door to Ed Rotberg. He was one of the pioneers in coin-op gaming working for Atari. One of the writers of Asteroids. He got me hooked on IT and gaming. I was googling him the other night and I read an article that talked about how they had quit programming because the challenge was gone and everything had to have huge production value. Well, he and some of his buddies are considering coming out of retirement because writing games for iphones has the same allure. Limited resources, has to be a game that is easy to learn by keeps you coming back for more, etc.

jst3p:Elegy: FTFA: You discover that we all have but five lives to give in the quest to crush candy, and if you use them all up before clearing a level, you're locked out of the game for 30 minutes before you can try again. Wait 30 minutes, lose that life, and you have to wait for 30 more. Or you can cough up 99 cents to buy more lives so that you can carry on playing. You know, while you have the hot hand.

For just 99 cents, you can purchase five more moves. I wish I didn't know this, but if, after 10 extra moves, you feel the need for another five, the price goes up to $1.99

[i.imgur.com image 300x301]

Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse to buy any game that relies on this revenue model to make money. These people can fark off and die with their microtransactions.

I actually like the microtransaction movement. There are a handful of games I play regularly that I have not paid a dime to play.

I hate it with a passion. I hate the fact that you expect me to pay a dollar for the game, and then there are hidden costs everywhere, and you can't actually get the full experience without buying into all of the bullshiat content. I hate the fact that it incintivises paying to offset poor players, so the rich have gaming experience where they can pay to "beat" something.

New gun? That's another dollar. Better plane/truck/boat? That'll be another dollar. Stats boost? 5 points for just $3.99! Can't get past this level because you suck at video games? Just $4.99 for 5 level skips!

Adding to the aggravation factor is that the buttons to buy this useless, shiatty in-game content are always hidden in plain sight in the most inconvenient place possible, making it more likely you'll agree to buy by accident finger brush.

No, just no. I will pay $10 for a mobile game to pass the time at the airport, before I will give in to the consumer rape that is the microtransaction model.

You say this after you have just downloaded it. For now, yes, it is in fact a fun little game. But slowly... slowly this happens:

And the evil begins to embrace you. Slowly at first, oh so slowly, but the tricks and plots and schemes eventually pile up, and being stuck soon gives way to being trapped, until one day you spend days, weeks, nay even months on the same level, being driven

kab:Games like this: Rehashes who are too young to have experienced arcade games.

Penny Arcade put forward the theory that this is, in fact, the revival of the arcade. Play an assortment of quick games for a short time each, there are high scores to beat (and who even does high scores anymore on the console titles?), and if you want to play more, well, put your coin down.

StopLurkListen:jst3p: StopLurkListen: Mike_LowELL: StopLurkListen: It's a game. Play it or don't. It's free, you can pay if you want or not. "Freemium" is just a different way to get income.

It's also a fundamentally flawed, impossibly toxic game model which makes finality in the finished work impossible. You have to continue adding things, regardless of whether they are good or bad, because that is the business model. The game can never be preserved, because that is the business model. Once the game stops being profitable, it gets shut off. The only saving grace is that most of the games using this model (regardless of company size and influence) happen to be shiat.

It's not flawed, it just is. Don't like it? Don't pay for it. Remember the days of the arcade machines? Those games were designed to get you to pay $0.25 every sixty seconds or so. This is pretty much the same but the first sixty seconds (or two days or whatever) are free.

The best way to convince these game makers to not do whatever it is you don't like, is to not give them money. Good luck with that, it's the biggest moneymaker now...

CSB. When I was a kid I lived next door to Ed Rotberg. He was one of the pioneers in coin-op gaming working for Atari. One of the writers of Asteroids. He got me hooked on IT and gaming. I was googling him the other night and I read an article that talked about how they had quit programming because the challenge was gone and everything had to have huge production value. Well, he and some of his buddies are considering coming out of retirement because writing games for iphones has the same allure. Limited resources, has to be a game that is easy to learn by keeps you coming back for more, etc.

That's awesome! I tried the same thing, I've been in games for a couple of decades, and saw that people were accepting lower production values than usual in the new social & casual games. Meaning, budgets of less than tens of millions. I struck out on my own, hired people, made two title ...

Here is a cool interview with him, he was (from what I remember) a really great guy:

Elegy:jst3p: Elegy: FTFA: You discover that we all have but five lives to give in the quest to crush candy, and if you use them all up before clearing a level, you're locked out of the game for 30 minutes before you can try again. Wait 30 minutes, lose that life, and you have to wait for 30 more. Or you can cough up 99 cents to buy more lives so that you can carry on playing. You know, while you have the hot hand.

For just 99 cents, you can purchase five more moves. I wish I didn't know this, but if, after 10 extra moves, you feel the need for another five, the price goes up to $1.99

[i.imgur.com image 300x301]

Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse to buy any game that relies on this revenue model to make money. These people can fark off and die with their microtransactions.

I actually like the microtransaction movement. There are a handful of games I play regularly that I have not paid a dime to play.

I hate it with a passion. I hate the fact that you expect me to pay a dollar for the game, and then there are hidden costs everywhere, and you can't actually get the full experience without buying into all of the bullshiat content. I hate the fact that it incintivises paying to offset poor players, so the rich have gaming experience where they can pay to "beat" something.

New gun? That's another dollar. Better plane/truck/boat? That'll be another dollar. Stats boost? 5 points for just $3.99! Can't get past this level because you suck at video games? Just $4.99 for 5 level skips!

Adding to the aggravation factor is that the buttons to buy this useless, shiatty in-game content are always hidden in plain sight in the most inconvenient place possible, making it more likely you'll agree to buy by accident finger brush.

No, just no. I will pay $10 for a mobile game to pass the time at the airport, before I will give in to the consumer rape that is the microtransaction model.

And big publishers have already experimented with putting microtransactions in big, full-priced games, which is a MASSIVE 'Fark you.". Day one DLC is bad enough.

It's totally cool, guys. The stripper told me she can't TELL me we'll get busy in the Champagne Room, but, she totally winked at me and said "once we're in there who *knows* what will happen?" Oh, here comes the bouncer back with my Visa.

It seems a shame that this VERY derivative game, and games like it, make roughly $1J (one jillion dollars) an hour when there are some great little original, non-"freemium" games for iOS and Android that lose money or just barely manage to feed the developers.

StopLurkListen:It's a game. Play it or don't. It's free, you can pay if you want or not. "Freemium" is just a different way to get income.

It's also a fundamentally flawed, impossibly toxic game model which makes finality in the finished work impossible. You have to continue adding things, regardless of whether they are good or bad, because that is the business model. The game can never be preserved, because that is the business model. Once the game stops being profitable, it gets shut off. The only saving grace is that most of the games using this model (regardless of company size and influence) happen to be shiat.

skozlaw:Between the Wii and smartphones I'm sorry to see the death of gaming come at the hands of overweight, forty-year old dipshiats.

Enjoy having people who have minimal comprehension of video games tell you how you are wrong, and how "opinions are like assholes".

From the comments, this Ramin Shokirzade article is AWESOME for understanding the psychology behind the game. It explains how the trick is done completely and clearly. So well written I wish I had written it myself:

In the last 15 years, the ubiquity of internet access has made it possible for videogame studios to switch to subscription and "freemium" business models. The effect of this is that they've been able to market to casual gamers, but their revenue became more tightly associated with the amount of hours people played their games.Only in recent years have videogame producers been learning from the casino gaming industry and trying their damnedest to get people neurologically dependent upon their product.

Mike_LowELL:You're absolutely correct that my opinions on the topic are subjective. Video games are a combination of mechanical logic (game code) and abstract aesthetic design (art assets, narrative contextualization). However, the simple fact remains that some opinions are demonstrably---dare I say objectively---better than others. My opinion is that the confluence of economic and game design decisions makes it a bad game, and something not worth paying attention to. Your opinion is that you like it, so that's what counts. My opinion is more well-thought-out, well-researched, demonstrates a better grasp of what I like and dislike in a game, and is generally more complex than yours. My opinion is better than yours.

You are an idiot. It may be your opinion that you are not but my opinion is more well-thought-out, well researched, demonstrates a better grasp of what I like and dislike in and idiot and is generally more complex than yours. My opinion is better than yours.

MightyPez:This hinges on the premise that your educating anyone. The game in question does a good job of letting people play the game, and laying out options on optional payments. Are they hiding something? You really haven't said anything that says they are. You're just being condescending and telling people they don't have the right to ignore for condescension.

I don't think there's any real discussion to be had when you keep repeatedly trying to get the answer to a question which has nothing to do with whether or not the game (as a value and time investment) is better or worse than other comparable games. Your laser focus on whether the game's business practices are transparent (via a legal interpretation) has nothing to do with this. And even if it did, the game would still be crap, and I could argue off of that.

js34603:Because everyone knows when you're playing video games it should be all about maximum effort. There can be no entertainment, it must be a struggle and EFFORT must be exerted.

Implying those who commit time and effort into video games are not enjoying themselves.

js34603://I guess I'll miss your stupid sports tab trolling. But not that much

I'm guessing this means you put me on ignore, which wow, I think that pretty much made my point. Fantastic.

DO NOT WANT Poster Girl:ByOwlLight: I am so baffled as to why replacing jewels with candies has made people go apeshiat.

Pogo games (EA) has a version of this called "Sweet Tooth" which has been around for years, and is a bit more challenging as you not only have to clear candies but also clear background patterns as well -- kind of like Bejeweled's mining game.

MightyPez:Mike_LowELL: MightyPez: How is that a problem? If people want to pay money, it's their choice. God forbid developers make money on their product. I just don't see how having people pay for a product as an option is consumer unfriendly.

The free market breaks down at the point where you say it's okay for the consumer to make uneducated choices, and that people are being nuisances by providing educated opinions on the topic.

So they don't know they are paying money? It isn't clearly marked in the game that certain things will cost money? If that's the case you're right, that is very deceptive. But from what I've seen everything is pretty clearly marked and there is even confirmation dialogues that such and such costs $X.XX. Are you suggesting people don't understand how monetary transactions work?

And several people in the thread have verified you can advance in the game without paying a single red cent. So the ones that do are apparently paying to make that advancement easier for them. Sounds like they had a choice and chose to pay money for that convenience.

I think MIke was agreeing with you.

Mind you, Mike_LowELL is a known troll who makes nonsensical "Poe's law" arguments defending Right-wing and anarcho-capitalist positions, so that's a dubious honor.

MightyPez:hawcian: The problem here is not the game (which is just another Bejeweled clone, Bejeweled itself being a clone of another game), it's people spending money to play it when you don't ever have to part ways with your wallet. It encourages developers/publishers to put paywalls up in their games, because that's what makes money. You're not paying for anything; you're literally paying for nothing, for no work on the part of the developer or publisher or content creator. I'm not sure why anyone would want that. Especially ridiculous in this case, considering there are dozens and dozens of Bejeweled clones (including Bejeweled itself) on the market, most of which aren't quite as egregious in their money-grabbing shenanigans.

Or, to put it another way: I don't give a flying fark about what you play; I do have a problem with encouraging consumer-unfriendly practices.

How is that a problem? If people want to pay money, it's their choice. God forbid developers make money on their product. I just don't see how having people pay for a product as an option is consumer unfriendly.

Did you watch The Matrix? One of the little elements of the plot was that the Matrix only WORKED because the overwhelming majority of people plugged into it CHOSE to remain plugged in, CHOSE to accept their drone world and drone life.

Microsoft's virtual monopoly on personal computing was forged the same way, it's a problem of something that is bad being accepted by the herd and hedging out the superior (but less popular) competition.

"So what?" So I don't like it, and it's going to hurt me, and maybe there's nothing I can do about that but complain, but I'm going to complain.

hawcian:Or, to put it another way: I don't give a flying fark about what you play; I do have a problem with encouraging consumer-unfriendly practices.

It's worse. Candy Crush is a "proof of concept" of wide-scale mind-control. Advertising and Mososos drag people in, microtransactions and play limitations activate cognitive dissonance, and the result is a shiatty, limited version of bejeweled is MORE SUCCESSFUL than bejeweled. It's a massive (and massively profitable) experiment in social psychology and it's proving we're the mindless drones we keep pretending not to be.

shiat, we're throwing tantrums over NSA spying and overbearing government authoritarianism, but there is NOTHING they do that we don't do a million times worse to ourselves on facebook and friendster and myspace.

Cyno01:Dragonflew: Cyno01: i found out today i could get Borderlands 2 + Season Pass for $15, but im not gonna play it anytime soon and it still doesnt come with the 30 or so character and skin and weapons packs, so im just gonna wait for the GotY edition down the road sometime.

For any of you wondering where to get BL2 for that price, check out greenmangaming.com

Regarding character skins... I never understood the point in a first-person game. As for weapons, there are endless amounts of them you can find, you don't need packs.

Dafatone: Dragonflew: Cyno01: i found out today i could get Borderlands 2 + Season Pass for $15, but im not gonna play it anytime soon and it still doesnt come with the 30 or so character and skin and weapons packs, so im just gonna wait for the GotY edition down the road sometime.

For any of you wondering where to get BL2 for that price, check out greenmangaming.com

Regarding character skins... I never understood the point in a first-person game. As for weapons, there are endless amounts of them you can find, you don't need packs.

They won't be at the level cap, and they'll... no. That's not how the game works. Ow.

I was mistaken, idk what i was thinking because ive played a lot of the first one, theres the aditional classes, a few smaller DLCs that dont come with the season pass and everything else is just skins, no weapons.[i.imgur.com image 850x514]As for why... Im OCD and willing to wait for the complete game.

Wow. that image just guaranteed I will never buy another product from gearbox/2k.

hawcian:The problem here is not the game (which is just another Bejeweled clone, Bejeweled itself being a clone of another game), it's people spending money to play it when you don't ever have to part ways with your wallet. It encourages developers/publishers to put paywalls up in their games, because that's what makes money. You're not paying for anything; you're literally paying for nothing, for no work on the part of the developer or publisher or content creator. I'm not sure why anyone would want that. Especially ridiculous in this case, considering there are dozens and dozens of Bejeweled clones (including Bejeweled itself) on the market, most of which aren't quite as egregious in their money-grabbing shenanigans.

Or, to put it another way: I don't give a flying fark about what you play; I do have a problem with encouraging consumer-unfriendly practices.

How is that a problem? If people want to pay money, it's their choice. God forbid developers make money on their product. I just don't see how having people pay for a product as an option is consumer unfriendly.

Cyno01:ladyfortuna: Give your money to Popcap. They're a GOOD, respectable game company, and they will use it to create more awesome games. Pass this knowledge on to your friends and family, and if they refuse to listen, I'll help you hide the body.

I want to give money to Popcap, when is PvZ2 coming out*!?

/*for PC

Hate to burst your jewel, but Popcap got bought out by EA a couple of years ago. Used to work with one of their founders. He's a very rich man now.

Parallax:jst3p: I never played Bejeweled, are the mechanics identical?

The game's pretty much the same, but after about five seconds playing Candy Crush I realized how wayyy inferior the actual mechanics (gameplay smoothness) are to Bejeweled. In Bejeweled, if you're quick, you can complete a second grouping (3, 4, or 5) before your first one is even done "vaporizing" or whatever. There are also a lot of fun elite-style moves Bejeweled's slippery mechanics allow. Meanwhile Candy Crush feel very stiff & slow.

C'mon... Popcap's been at it TEN YEARS perfecting this game engine. It's very slick & they (mostly) deserve my occasional coin money. I've been playing it for five years now, maybe a couple of times per week. My wife and I both get well over a million almost every time we use a "Spacial Gem!"

I can't get past 65 but I refuse to purchase help or something. I spend all five lives when I wake up trying to win, then usually around lunch remember to try again. Then, when I am trying to fall asleep, I waste 10 minutes trying to beat the damn levelStuck on level 65 for 4/5 days now.

Candy Crush is a cold-war psychological experiment somehow loosed upon the modern world. I'm convinced it was contrived to test human's reactions to scenarios/problems where no amount of effort, planning, or intelligence would produce results, and any progress made was simply due to fate and chance.

I did too, i was expecting a schlocky exercise in false nostalgia, but i was pleasantly surprised by it.

ladyfortuna:Give your money to Popcap. They're a GOOD, respectable game company, and they will use it to create more awesome games. Pass this knowledge on to your friends and family, and if they refuse to listen, I'll help you hide the body.

This is why if I need games to pass the time, I just pull down roms for the NES or Atari (or even SNES/Genesis). I get to play all the games I want from growing up as well as many that I missed. No cost and the libraries are huge. Sure some games are tough to play on a touch screen but you can find something way more fun then the casual stuff out there today.

And if I want games for my PC, there's always gog.com. Again, hundreds of titles I missed as well as some great indie titles.

Gosling:Penny Arcade put forward the theory that this is, in fact, the revival of the arcade. Play an assortment of quick games for a short time each, there are high scores to beat (and who even does high scores anymore on the console titles?), and if you want to play more, well, put your coin down.

The difference is that those games all competed in the same ecosystem and, by exposing players to a consistently high level of quality, not just educated the players about the game, but kept the barrier of developer entry high. And yes, arcade games have had claw games and ticket redemption games to subsidize the "hardcore" stuff, and yes, not all arcade smash hits have been good games (See: Mortal Kombat). Whereas in a market where there is no barrier of entry and the ecosystem is wide open, you end up with everyone trying to court a massive and uneducated audience of video game players that can be milked well beyond the price of a typical game experience. The philosophy of development (both arcades and browser games featuring endless score-hunting games) is to some degree similar, but the distribution model (and the effects of the distribution model) is the exact opposite.

The game's pretty much the same, but after about five seconds playing Candy Crush I realized how wayyy inferior the actual mechanics (gameplay smoothness) are to Bejeweled. In Bejeweled, if you're quick, you can complete a second grouping (3, 4, or 5) before your first one is even done "vaporizing" or whatever. There are also a lot of fun elite-style moves Bejeweled's slippery mechanics allow. Meanwhile Candy Crush feel very stiff & slow.

C'mon... Popcap's been at it TEN YEARS perfecting this game engine. It's very slick & they (mostly) deserve my occasional coin money. I've been playing it for five years now, maybe a couple of times per week. My wife and I both get well over a million almost every time we use a "Spacial Gem!"

I'm at level 185 (started playing because a lady friend asked for advice on a level) and haven't invested a single dime. Have NEVER considered spending money because the levels can be beat without buying extra moves or special candies.

Sometimes it's frustrating to run out of moves and have one background jelly left, but that's part of the game. Also, I don't like having a game beat me, so I will play to beat that damn thing without paying them a dime.

The thing that frustrates me with this game is the randomness. Depending upon what you get at the start, your game can be over quickly or you can build the right pieces to start reaching objectives.

Some notes: I noticed on my phone that I will have a bunch of messages from friends that will allow me to keep adding lives. At one point, I had something like 53 gifts of extra moves or lives. It doesn't seem to work like that on Facebook. The author of the article needs to get some friends.

If you have to spend money to advance in Candy Crush, stop playing it.

ladyfortuna:Bejeweled 3 has good mini-games; I especially enjoy the poker and the butterfly ones.

I haven't played Bejeweled 3, so I won't comment.

StopLurkListen:Remember the days of the arcade machines? Those games were designed to get you to pay $0.25 every sixty seconds or so. This is pretty much the same but the first sixty seconds (or two days or whatever) are free.

The difference is that the arcade payment model empowers the user. In the arcade distribution model, having to insert another credit is a punishment for poor play. The entire culture of arcade video games rewards the skilled player with more playtime, more access to content. A defining tenet of "arcade culture" is that these players subscribe to the "one-credit rule", in which you haven't "completed" a game unless you manage to beat it on a single credit. Some players will even go as far as not to credit feed, and start the game over whenever they die. The idea that "arcade games sucked up all your quarters" is not relevant to skilled players, and while some arcade games have had some complete bullshiat in them (unfair artificial intelligence), most good single-player arcade games can be conquered with a single credit, and there are entire communities of players who have done this.

The free-to-play business model, on the other hand, forces you to spend money or breaks immersion by cutting into the game experience with advertising or time limits. Not to mention that most free-to-play games, when compared to game history, is just utterly terrible to begin with, and most of the battle can be fought right there.

StopLurkListen:The best way to convince these game makers to not do whatever it is you don't like, is to not give them money. Good luck with that, it's the biggest moneymaker now...

I have never paid for any content in a free-to-play game ever, so there's no real concern here.

LeroyBourne:Never played it. I heard the only way to get past certain levels is you have to pay, and doesn't fly with me. Plus I have like 4 games of words with friends going so that takes up plenty of time.

I go with Puzzles & Dragons here; similar principles, stupid-enormous in Japan, Bejeweled with the ability to move the gem fully around the board, vague Pokemon gimmick. They'll try to suck your money out of you, too, but it's pleasantly possible to stay out of the IAP game by using the freebies they give out pretty regularly and make it far more of a skill game than it is. It's farking diabolically well-engineered, though.

Jon iz teh kewl:quatchi: Elegy: Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse to buy any game that relies on this revenue model to make money. These people can fark off and die with their microtransactions.

^^^^THIS^^^^

how else are u supposed to buy a beloved Acai tree in Farmville

Yeah, that's another one I don't get.

I remember reading a while back about some stupid virtual aquarium game that some parents thought were safe and fun for their kids to play only to find ridiculously large bills later when their kids clicked on the pretty fishies that actually cost money. Not accusing the people who make CC or Farmville of that level of scam but the business model basically sucks. It's like crack dealers who give ya the first hit free kinda thing in my book.

This new age of gaming where you don't actually have a hard copy of the game you can play for free after purchase but instead access a site that may or may not be there tomorrow and may or may not cost money in dribs and drabs just rubs me the wrong way I guess.

Mike_LowELL:StopLurkListen: It's a game. Play it or don't. It's free, you can pay if you want or not. "Freemium" is just a different way to get income.

It's also a fundamentally flawed, impossibly toxic game model which makes finality in the finished work impossible. You have to continue adding things, regardless of whether they are good or bad, because that is the business model. The game can never be preserved, because that is the business model. Once the game stops being profitable, it gets shut off. The only saving grace is that most of the games using this model (regardless of company size and influence) happen to be shiat.

It's not flawed, it just is. Don't like it? Don't pay for it. Remember the days of the arcade machines? Those games were designed to get you to pay $0.25 every sixty seconds or so. This is pretty much the same but the first sixty seconds (or two days or whatever) are free.

The best way to convince these game makers to not do whatever it is you don't like, is to not give them money. Good luck with that, it's the biggest moneymaker now...

ladyfortuna:Mike_LowELL: Snukastyle: They just killed the fun for me...pretty much every game like this has one obstacle type that kills the enjoyment factor of the game, at least for this gamer.

That Bejeweled is a horrible template for match clear puzzle games, one which we dismissed back in the nineties when it was called Columns, and that there are much much better match clear games (Tetris the Grandmaster, Puzzle League, Magical Drop) worth playing?

Bejeweled 3 has good mini-games; I especially enjoy the poker and the butterfly ones.

Mike_LowELL:Snukastyle: They just killed the fun for me...pretty much every game like this has one obstacle type that kills the enjoyment factor of the game, at least for this gamer.

That Bejeweled is a horrible template for match clear puzzle games, one which we dismissed back in the nineties when it was called Columns, and that there are much much better match clear games (Tetris the Grandmaster, Puzzle League, Magical Drop) worth playing?

Bejeweled 3 has good mini-games; I especially enjoy the poker and the butterfly ones.

Mike_LowELL:StopLurkListen: It's a game. Play it or don't. It's free, you can pay if you want or not. "Freemium" is just a different way to get income.

It's also a fundamentally flawed, impossibly toxic game model which makes finality in the finished work impossible. You have to continue adding things, regardless of whether they are good or bad, because that is the business model. The game can never be preserved, because that is the business model. Once the game stops being profitable, it gets shut off. The only saving grace is that most of the games using this model (regardless of company size and influence) happen to be shiat.

Snukastyle:They just killed the fun for me...pretty much every game like this has one obstacle type that kills the enjoyment factor of the game, at least for this gamer.

That Bejeweled is a horrible template for match clear puzzle games, one which we dismissed back in the nineties when it was called Columns, and that there are much much better match clear games (Tetris the Grandmaster, Puzzle League, Magical Drop) worth playing?